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A former U.S. soldier who spent weeks interrogating Omar Khadr says he wants to testify before a Guantanamo Bay court and rejects any accusations that he harshly treated the Canadian detainee.

In the first interview he has given since leaving the army, Joshua Claus told the Toronto Star that he feels he has been unfairly portrayed concerning his work as an interrogator at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

"They're trying to imply I'm beating or torturing everybody I ever talked to," Claus said by telephone yesterday. "I really don't care what people think of me. I know what I did and I know what I didn't do."

Claus was identified during a Guantanamo hearing as Khadr's chief interrogator during the three months the Toronto teenager was imprisoned in Bagram.

Khadr had been shot and captured in Afghanistan on July 27, 2002, following a firefight in which he's alleged to have thrown a grenade that fatally wounded Delta Force soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer.

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The prosecution is relying on damning statements Khadr made in Bagram, reportedly admitting his involvement, which his lawyers argue were gleaned under torture.

Khadr faces five war crimes charges before a military commission including "murder in violation of the laws of war," for Speer's death. The Pentagon also alleges he conspired to kill U.S. forces in Afghanistan and provided support to Al Qaeda.

Khadr's lawyers fought to get access to Claus at a Guantanamo hearing earlier this month after the prosecution had dropped him from a previous witness list.

Navy Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler accused the prosecution of trying to hide Claus' identity because he had been involved in the interrogation of an Afghan detainee who died in U.S. custody.

The December 2002 death of anAfghan taxi driver named Dilawar was ruled a homicide by military investigators and was the subject of a New York Times investigation and an Oscar-winning documentary called Taxi to the Darkside. Both the film and newspaper story portrayed an inexperienced unit of soldiers under tremendous pressure to get intelligence in Bagram.

Claus was 21 at the time, and the assignment was his first deployment. But he said yesterday it was unfair to compare his interrogation of Khadr to that of Dilawar or the other detainees.

"Omar was pretty much my first big case," Claus said, noting that they'd talk for six to eight hours a day. "With Omar I spent a lot of time trying to understand who he was and what I could say to him or do for him, whether it be to bring him extra food or get a letter out to his family ... I needed to talk to him and get him to trust me."

He said he was trying to find a "symbiotic relationship" with Khadr, who was 15 at the time of his capture.

In September 2005, Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault of Dilawar and was sentenced to five months in jail.

The 2,000-page confidential army file on the investigation into the case, obtained by The New York Times, quotes another soldier saying that on the day Dilawar died, Claus stood behind him and twisted up the back of the hood that covered his head.

"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behaviour seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."

"These two events are completely separate," Claus said yesterday, pointing out Khadr's interrogation was three months before Dilawar's, among other differences.

He said he became "emotionally involved" with the Dilawar case and lost his temper, unlike Khadr's interrogation, which was controlled.

Khadr's time at Bagram is key because the prosecution has relied on his interrogations in building the case against the Toronto-born detainee, who is now 21.

"Toward the end of the firefight, the accused threw a grenade that killed Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer," notes the prosecution in a court submission last year, with a footnote to an "interview of accused Sept. 17, 2002."

The court filing to Washington's Court of Military Commission Review continues: "When asked on September 17, 2002, why he helped the men construct the explosives the accused (Khadr) responded `to kill U.S. forces.'

"The accused then related during the same interview that he had been told the U.S. wanted to go to war against Islam. And for that reason he assisted in the building and later deploying of the explosives, and later threw a grenade at the American."

In an affidavit released this month, Khadr claims he was sometimes brought to interrogations on a stretcher – still recovering from being shot twice in the back and extensive eye injuries. His lawyers argue his statements are unreliable because they were the product of "coercion or torture."

Claus said yesterday he had not been contacted by the prosecution recently and did not know if he would be called to testify. He would also not comment on what he is doing now or disclose the location from where he was calling.

The documents released last week note Claus was once offered immunity in order to testify about the Khadr case. He said yesterday he could not discuss the issue.

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